"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own." -- Gary Gygax"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" -- Dave Arneson

Good places for ideas. Dwarf Fortress is pretty much the ultimate in procedural sandbox. It's also a good way to learn about how stuff gets made, why certain metals are better than others, etc. It's a cool low (really, no) magic fantasy setting. You could even use a screenprinted large map as a campaign world. (Not sure if you can print off the legends/history, but I think you can get to view it... so it should be printable as well. Huge, ready-made backstory if you ever wanted it or needed it.)

I really liked Ultima5's virtues system. I've always felt like there was something missing from the WAY people played fantasy RPGs. Ultima5 also squeezed an incredible amount of atmosphere out of very tight computing ability. The reagent system is kinda cool, too, I've always liked the free-form magic system. (Seems like spell components are always the first thing that gets chucked from D&D 3.x games, in my experience.)

NetHack is a great analog for "you're going to die. A lot. but it will be fun." DF has that as well.

Just some thoughts that I had, while I'm waiting on my book to arrive in the mail.

I've dreamed of a conversion of Darklands for a while. Great video game set in medieval Germany. Very sandbox and innovative in the RPG realm. High points are: Alchemist class (and a detailed alchemy system), Clerics that are similar to DCC wizards (saints are their "patrons"), great, what I call, campaign world control -- i.e. if you commit a crime in a city, that city (and possibly the greater area) has you tagged as wanted until you make amends; as well as a fairly complex reputation system that scales local, regional, national, solid economic system.

Thought about DF some more, and decided to share what a procedurally generated map looks like, for those who aren't familiar with the game. It's pretty badass, goes through a long simulation of uplift and erosion to place mountains, rivers, oceans, deserts, glaciers, etc. You can also tweak all of the parameters at world gen, in case you want tons of volcanoes or something.

Word of warning: very steep learning curve, and it's kinda like looking at the Matrix for a bit until your eyes adjust to the ASCII graphics. Once they do, though, it's more immersive than any slick-graphics game I've ever played.

I've dreamed of a conversion of Darklands for a while. Great video game set in medieval Germany. Very sandbox and innovative in the RPG realm. High points are: Alchemist class (and a detailed alchemy system), Clerics that are similar to DCC wizards (saints are their "patrons"), great, what I call, campaign world control -- i.e. if you commit a crime in a city, that city (and possibly the greater area) has you tagged as wanted until you make amends; as well as a fairly complex reputation system that scales local, regional, national, solid economic system.

I remember that game. I had it. Can you even get it anymore? How do you remember the details of it?

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